


Dead Man Walking

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Fluff, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene, Some Dialogue Not for Sensitive Readers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23075806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: "If you plan to get your panties in a twist every time the LT's under fire,” Brad says in a low, no-nonsense rumble, “we're gonna have a problem."
Relationships: Brad Colbert & James Trombley, Brad Colbert & Ray Person, Brad Colbert & Ray Person & James Trombley, Nate Fick/Ray Person, Ray Person & James Trombley
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	Dead Man Walking

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the “Fill a Prompt, Save Three” challenge over on the **[Loose Lips Sink Ships Prompt Meme](https://looselipssinkships.altervista.org/prompt.php)** for the prompt:
> 
> “After that ambush where Nate gets out and directs his platoon out of the kill zone.”
> 
> Beta read and made miles better by the eternally lovely **Zippit.** As always, I know this is not how it really went down and that the actual dudes are not like this. I am borrowing the TV exploits for my own nefarious gay purposes.
> 
>  **Warning:** If you’ve watched the show you know how these guys talk. While I have tried not be excessive I have also attempted accurate character voice so you will run across slurs and foul language of varying stripes. Don’t complain to me if you don’t like it, you have been warned.

Ray drums his fingers in a frantic tattoo against the steering wheel of the Team One Humvee while he waits for a single one of his fellow Marines to pull their head out of their ass and turn the fuck around. They're jacked halfway up onto an embankment, boxed into the street by a copse of densely packed, scrubby little trees, just a short bridge away from Al-Kūt and rendered functionally useless during an ambush by every shit-head behind him who can’t figure out a three-point turn. Ray has just begun internally debating the relative merits of conscripting a couple of road flares into service as semaphores and walking the dumb bastards through the process himself when the radio crackles and Gunny Wynn’s voice echoes down the line.

“This is Bravo Two-Four, Bravo Two-Four, all units be advised: the LT is foot mobile and making his way up the line. I repeat: LT is foot mobile and on the advance, watch your fire.”

Something cold and spiny pierces through the live wire crackle of adrenaline humming hot in Ray’s veins. “What,” he says, with feeling, “the fuck?”

He cranes his head to peer through the rear window, but it’s too dark to see much even with tracer rounds cutting a lightsaber path through the night overhead. He shoulders his door open, sticking his neck out and squinting back into the shadows. He thinks he might just be able to make out a nondescript figure darting between one Humvee and another, but a ribbon of machine-gun fire tears into the dirt a few feet away from him before he can confirm, so he yanks the door closed again while he swears the air blue.

“Ray?” Brad demands, without bothering to look over. He and Trombley are pumping methodical bursts of gunfire into the brush while Reporter wheezes himself halfway to a heart attack in the backseat, cowering against the door like a little kid afraid of the storm outside. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. Ray hopes he didn't shit himself—he doesn't want to have to deal with the cleanup. Brad's bowstrung baritone interrupts his musings, “Give me a sitrep.”

“Our esteemed lieutenant has apparently decided that this is the perfect moment to take a leisurely motherfucking stroll down the goddamn Yellow Brick Road,” Ray reports, curling his fingers white-knuckle tight over the steering wheel. He darts a glance over his shoulder again, nervous and instinctual, but all he can see are the hulking shapes of the rest of Bravo Two’s units at his back. “He was sharing air with Encino Man earlier, but I didn't think that kind of stupid was catching."

"We'll alert Doc Bryan to a potential outbreak as soon as we're out of this shitbox," Brad assures, reaching back to pat Ray clumsily on the shoulder without bothering to look. 

"Yeah, yeah." Ray gives Brad's arm an absent thump in turn. "Keep your eyes peeled for baby-faced oorah dicksucks with more balls than brains coming up the footpath. Last thing this squad needs is to plant hot lead in the LT’s money-maker.”

Trombley squeezes off another burst and then lets out a low, appraising whistle through his teeth. “Oh man, sarge!” he says brightly. “I think I got that guy right in the sack!” He bites his lip for a second as he sends another string of hot rounds into the dark and continues without lifting his head from his eyepiece, “Hey, you think you’d get drummed out if you shot the LT?”

It’s enough to pull Ray’s attention from his steady scanning of the bridge. He cranes around in his seat to pin Trombley with the full weight of his affronted disbelief. “What the fuck kind of serial killer ass question is that supposed to be?”

“Well, can't see for shit out here, right?” Trombley explains, his already nasal voice lilting into an arch, defensive whine. “So it’s not like you’d _know_ it was the LT. But if you thought he was, like, a haji sneaking up or something - ha!” He breaks off into a delighted crow. “Right in the kneecap, guy coming up the slope on the left! Ten points!”

Ordinarily, Ray might play along for a bit—Trombley might be a creepy little psychopath but the kid knows how to riff on a theme—but tonight his sense of humor is all caught up in visions of Nate out there in the dark, with unfriendly fire swarming like a plague of locusts and enough morons on their own side to double or triple that risk, easy. He turns back around and grips the steering wheel so hard it creaks, drawling, “If I were you, I’d be more worried about getting shitcanned for killing those kids.”

“It was _one_ kid!” Trombley protests. "And I didn't kill him!"

"That we know of," Ray concedes. He bares his teeth in a smile, turning his face just enough that Trombley will be able to see it. "News travels slow out here. Maybe the kid bit it right after take-off and the dishonorable discharge just hasn't caught up with you yet."

That's enough to pull Trombley's attention from the situation at hand. Even in the dark, his face glows red with fury as he huffs his way toward a roaring response. Ray is looking forward to it—he hasn't had a chance to administer a real tongue-lashing in ages and Trombley is a guaranteed knock-out in this particular ring. Unfortunately, Brad cuts in before he can get a word in.

“Both of you shut the fuck up!” He flashes a sharp, warning look over his shoulder. Ray pretends not to see it, but he can feel its weight boring into his cheek. Brad whips back around a second later, hunching down behind his M4, and mutters, “This is not the time for a fucking domestic.”

Behind them, Trombley drops into a sullen silence, broken only by the steady burp of gunfire as he mows down the ambushers making their way through the undergrowth. Across the bench, Reporter is still gasping like a fresh-caught fish.

A few minutes pass like years, the horror expanding from heartbeats into decades, and then Lilley is wheeling around and peeling out with Ray hot on his tail, bringing up the rear of the retreat. They speed along the winding road and back the way they came, spitting spumes of gravel from under their tires until one of the forward vehicles breaks off where the land flattens out just before the outskirts of Muwaffaquiyah—well beyond artillery range—and the rest of Bravo Two falls into a haphazard line beside it.

The night around them is blessedly still, if not quite silent, cut through with the low drum of engines and the murmur of distant voices on the air. Ray takes a deep breath in and lets it out slow, uncurling his fingers as he does. They ache from how hard he'd been holding on. He can't tell if the tremor under his skin is a lingering adrenaline buzz or a side effect of all the Ripped Fuel he'd consumed on the way in—not that it matters, though one does feel decidedly more badass than the other.

"Ray," Brad instructs, in a deceptively placid tone, "check the tires."

It's standard procedure, but something about the look Brad cuts Ray afterward, looking back through the passenger side window, makes it abundantly clear that there's more at play than going through the post-combat checklist to catalogue wear-and-tear. Sure enough, after Ray has subjected the front driver's side tire to a brisk but thorough inspection and circles around to the rear, Brad shoots him a withering glance over his folded arms from where he's leaning against the bumper.

"What?" Ray demands, shoulders rising of their own accord. He drops into a crouch to take a peek at the rear left tire, which coincidentally spares him from meeting the lethal edge of Brad's glare.

There's the crunch of boots on gravel and then Brad is hovering at Ray's back, a looming wedge of shadow sprawling onto the ground before him.

"If you plan to get your panties in a twist every time the LT's under fire,” Brad says in a low, no-nonsense rumble, “we're gonna have a problem."

Ray freezes for a split second, not long enough that Brad should notice but with enough force that Ray feels a sudden, stinging burn in his thighs and a tight knot twists into the small of his back. He reaches out to scrub at a little gray oblong jammed into one of the treads that could be shrapnel or a garden-variety rock with one of his gloved fingers. The bit of shale breaks easily and falls away into the sand.

"Thought you said you wouldn't ask," Ray hedges, flicking a careful glance over his shoulder.

"Didn't figure you'd give me a reason to," Brad shoots back. He butts the toe of his boot into the sole of Ray's where his feet are folded underneath him and Ray yelps and nearly pitches forward. He turns to scowl at Brad, who rolls his eyes and curls his fingers, beckoning. 

"C'mon, Person, get up," he sighs, gentle but exasperated. "Take your dressing-down like a man."

"Man," Ray whines, wiping his palms against his thighs and rising grudgingly to his feet, "why aren't you bawling Trombley out? He was talking just as much shit as I was."

"I plan to have words with Trombley, too, after this," Brad concedes with a little dip of his chin. "The difference is that _you,"_ he raises one hand, pointer finger extended, and jabs at Ray's vest to punctuate the point, "know better than to engage in petty arguments in an active combat zone."

Ray doesn't say anything, but he ducks his gaze to the scrubby grass a few feet off, jaw clenched and shoulders drawn up high and tight. He fists his hands at his sides and then shakes them out and does it again.

"Look," Brad sighs again and raises a hand to pinch at the bridge of his nose. When he speaks, it's pained, like every word has been dipped in egg-wash and rolled in a breading of glass particulates. "I don't give a shit where you stick your dick, alright? Play bury the pickle with whoever you want, that's your prerogative, but keep that shit out of combat." He presses his mouth into a line, brow furrowing over his serious, slate-blue eyes, and waits until Ray lifts his gaze to expound soberly, "Goad Trombley to hell and back when we're en-route, but you pull that shit again while we're engaged and I'm booting you for one of Poke's boys."

His mouth twists up at the end, just a little, right on the edges, and relief floods through Ray in a wave so strong it nearly takes his knees out from under him. Brad is serious, at least in part, but he's not throwing Ray under the proverbial bus quite yet. Ray heaves a shaky sigh and scoffs, "Please. You'd be begging to have me back within a week."

Brad smirks for real and rolls his eyes again. He claps Ray on the shoulder and then glances down at his watch, its wide face a dark disc nearly spanning the breadth of his whole wrist. He squints for a second and then says in a thoughtful drawl, "We'll be waiting on command to get their shit together a while yet." He looks up and nods to the distant clusters of Marines peppering the landscape before arching one pointed eyebrow in Ray's direction. "You can probably catch the LT before things get moving again, though God only knows why he puts up with a piece of sister-fucking backwoods swamp garbage like you in the first place."

"It's because I suck dick like a Shop Vac," Ray offers with a shrug, grinning when Brad groans and grimaces and waves a hand through the air in front of his face as though he can dispel the mental image like gathering smoke.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Person," Brad grumbles. "If I’m not supposed to ask you sure as shit better ease up on the fucking telling.”

"Hey! You're the pussy who dragged me out here to talk about feelings," Ray grouses cheerfully. He leans in a little and adds in a not-quite-whisper, "Funny that only one of us is a flaming homo, huh? Are you sure you're not?"

"I'm sure."

"Okay," Ray presses, with affected intensity, "but like, _how_ sure? There's a simple test we can do - "

Brad groans again and puts his whole hand over Ray's face, giving him an affectionate shove that sends him stumbling a few steps back on a shallow wave of laughter.

"Go see to your fucking boyfriend," Brad growls, already turning to inspect the Humvee's other tire. Ray whips him a sloppy salute and spins on his heel, darting off before Brad has a chance to come to his senses. As he makes his retreat, he hears the creaky, metallic moan of a Humvee door opening and then a choked, retching cough while the Reporter upends his guts into the gravel.

It takes him a few minutes of searching to pin Nate down. Figuratively speaking, of course, because despite Brad's frequent aspersions to the contrary, Ray is a dab hand at discretion when he wants to be. Nate is at the center of a little knot of Marines, all huddled around the hood of his Humvee, where a combat map is laid out with a low red light dancing over its surface.

" - break through after the LAVs clear the immediate threat," Nate is saying, one gloved finger tapping at something on the map. 

"Right." Encino Man, nodding lazily over Nate's shoulder, lifts a hand to gesture to the map. "Second platoon can - "

Nate cuts a sharp look at Encino Man out of the corner of his eye and interrupts crisply, "With all due respect, Captain, my team has taken two casualties tonight. I would ask that you designate another platoon to function as the tip of the spear on this leg and allow us a little time to regroup."

Encino Man closes his mouth around a frown, thought clanging through the gummy gears in his mind, and then nods, slow. "Alright, Nate," he agrees, reaching up to clap a companionable hand to his shoulder. "Tell your boys they did good." He turns to Kocher and Captain America, who is chewing on the fingers of his gloves like an anxious dog just behind him. "Think third platoon's up to the task?"

Kocher nods, even as Captain America floods so white it looks like he might faint.

Point made, Nate withdraws from the little tangle, gaze downcast and lips pulled into a tight, flat frown. Ray catches him with a shoulder as he's about to shuffle past and Nate glances up, startled, reaching an arm out on instinct to catch Ray just in case.

"Hey," Nate says, breathless, eyebrows jumping up to disappear under his helmet for a surprised second. His gaze roves over Ray's face, green eyes bright despite the cloud-mottled night, and something sweet starts to curl at the corners of his lush mouth.

"Hi," Ray nods, and only refrains from hauling him in by the straps of his vest to kiss him right there, in front of God and the U.S. Marine Corps and everyone, by a severe application of willpower. He hooks a thumb over his shoulder, instead, and licks his dry lips. "Got a minute?"

"Of course," Nate nods, and gestures to Ray to lead the way.

They can't really be alone, out here, with nothing but flat scrub and the occasional waist-high boulder rolling off into the endless desert in every direction, but Ray manages relative seclusion by ducking between a couple of vehicles that have been abandoned by their teams for the moment.

"What - " Nate starts, but Ray shakes his head and tows him in. 

He means for the kiss to be brief, the kind of quick, sloppy thing that he could probably play off as a joke if anyone happened to catch them in the act, but Nate, it seems, has other ideas. He makes a muffled sound of surprise against Ray's lips and then brings both hands up to catch Ray's face between them, bearing Ray back until he staggers into the side of one of the Humvees with an, "Oof!"

Nate takes the sudden, surprised opening as an invitation and slips his tongue into Ray's mouth, licking hot and slick past his teeth. Ray, who has never been one to prioritize self-preservation over well-deserved fun, scrabbles for better purchase against Nate's shoulders and gives as good as he gets.

It's a little awkward, their helmets thudding together, and it only lasts for a few frantic seconds before Nate pulls back to pant into the warm, sticky air between them. Their foreheads aren't quite brushing—helmets, again—but the effect is about the same.

"Wow," Ray breathes, and Nate sighs a shallow gust of a laugh, eyes dropping closed.

He licks his lips—fuller and pinker from where Ray had bitten at them—and drags a thumb along Ray's cheekbone as he croaks, "Sorry. Got away from myself, for a second."

"More than a second," Ray observes, low and teasing, taking careful note of the way that Nate is shivering against him. He brushes his nose against Nate's and presses another quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. "That was some stone-cold badass action you pulled back there, climbing out into the shit. Got me a real ballsy motherfucker on my hands. Mama would be so proud."

"Ballsy," Nate scoffs, and shakes his head. He opens his eyes and sighs again, taking a step back. He brings his fingers up to rest around Ray's wrists where he still has his hands fisted in the straps of Nate's vest, giving them a gentle squeeze and then letting his arms fall to his sides. "Try desperate."

"Desperately _hot,"_ Ray argues, just to see Nate laugh. It's a weak, tremulous thing, but it still counts. He lifts one shoulder in a shrug and smooths Nate's vest back into place. "It worked, anyway. Schooled those motherfuckers through basic driver's ed."

"It worked this time," Nate allows, and Ray nods.

"This time," he agrees. He chews on his lip for a second, eyes locked with Nate's where they spark through the gloom. There are a lot of things he wants to say, most of them vague demands that Nate refrain from embarking upon such foolhardy courses of action in the future, but he knows that's not a promise that either of them can make. In the end he settles for shaking his head and grinning, "You're a lucky son of a bitch, LT."

Nate studies him, shadows cutting dark hollows around his eyes, picking a deep dimple into his cheek where his smirk curls high. He reaches out to squeeze Ray's hand once, pointed. "Not because of that," he says.

Ray bites back a laugh, brow furrowed over his fond smile, and declares, "That's some gay-ass shit, dude."

"Super gay," Nate confirms, and darts in to kiss him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! <3


End file.
